Harvard students test the flow rate from one of the newly installed tap stands.Credit: Christopher Lombardo

A group of students from Harvard have been working to help restore clean water to the rural town of Pinalito in the Dominican Republic. Now, for the first time in a long time, the water in Pinalito is clean again.

This from Harvard Gazette:

For the past 2½ years, students in the Harvard University chapter of Engineers Without Borders have been rehabilitating and improving a potable water system in the rural town in the Dominican Republic. After the most recent visit, the students returned to campus in late August having successfully worked with the community to upgrade the water quality and distribution system.

The residents now have clean water – something that wasn’t available prior due to the failed well built by a government contractor. The well installed by the Harvard students can produce 27 gallons a minute, according to Christopher Lombardo – assistant director for undergraduate studies in engineering sciences at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

During their time in Pinalito, the students made sure to integrate the community into the design and building of the well in order to combat skepticism and foster relationships.

Not only does this experience provide the rural town with clean water, but it also shows the students that there are many other perspective they’ll need to consider when they go further in the field of engineering, and they won’t always have access to a state-of-the-art lab.

The NeXXt Scholars Program was launched by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in December 2011.

The New York Academy of Sciences in partnership with the U.S. Department of State and a consortium of 38 women’s colleges launched the NeXXt Scholars Program, now entering its third year, to help engage and advance American women and women from countries with predominantly Muslim populations in pursuit of undergraduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academic fields. In order to accomplish this goal, the Academy will provide partnership, mentorship, and networking support for these NeXXt Scholars by way of a STEM Fellow who will serve as a one-to-one mentor.

Applications for 2014 STEM Fellow positions are being accepted until September 20th.

ECS is also proud to provide students with excellent opportunities in electrochemical and solid state science and technology. Network at the Society’s meetings or become a member to receive even greater benefits.

Co-editor of Interface, Vijay Ramani, talks about open access publishing in this letter from the editor.

The following is an article from the latest issue of Interface by co-editor Vijay Ramani.

Late last year, I accepted the invitation to become co-editor of Interface safe in the knowledge that I would not actually be called upon to do anything for the foreseeable future.* Thanks to the outstanding ECS staff and conscientious guest editors and authors, this happy state of affairs has persisted until now. But just as “even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea,” so it is that the inevitable passage of time has brought upon a situation wherein actual effort is required on my part, viz. this editorial. The increasingly plaintive entreaties from our admirably patient Director of Publications seeking the contents of this column can no longer, in good conscience, be ignored or fobbed off with feeble excuses.

Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) is a method of producing renewable energy from two streams of a different salinity. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT

“When the River Meets the Sea” may very well be a John Denver song circa 1979, but it is also an intersection with the potential to generate a significant amount of power. According to a team of mechanical engineers at MIT, when river water collides with sea water, there exists the potential to harness a significant amount of renewable energy.

This from Phys.org:

The researchers evaluated an emerging method of power generation called pressure retarded osmosis (PRO), in which two streams of different salinity are mixed to produce energy. In principle, a PRO system would take in river water and seawater on either side of a semi-permeable membrane. Through osmosis, water from the less-salty stream would cross the membrane to a pre-pressurized saltier side, creating a flow that can be sent through a turbine to recover power.

According to calculations by Leonardo Banchik, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, a PRO system could potentially power a coastal wastewater-treatment plant by taking in seawater and combining it with treated wastewater to produce renewable energy.

Although more research needs to be done to see in what applications the PRO system is economically viable, Banchik sees the huge potential of this method.

“Say we’re in a place that could really use desalinated water, like California, which is going through a terrible drought,” Banchik says. “They’re building a desalination plant that would sit right at the sea, which would take in seawater and give Californians water to drink. It would also produce a saltier brine, which you could mix with wastewater to produce power.”

The solar harvesting system uses small organic molecules developed by Lunt and his team to absorb specific nonvisible wavelengths of sunlight. Credit: Yimu Zhao

A team of researchers at Michigan State University has developed a new type of solar concentrator that can harvest energy when placed over a window without blocking the view.

The new development is called the transparent luminescent solar concentrator and it has the potential to be used on buildings, cell phones, and any other device that has a flat, clear surface.

This from Science Daily:

Research in the production of energy from solar cells placed around luminescent plastic-like materials is not new. These past efforts, however, have yielded poor results – the energy production was inefficient and the materials were highly colored.

The transparent luminescent solar concentrator is still in the beginning of its development – yielding a solar conversion efficiency just close to one percent. However, Richard Lunt of MSU’s College of Engineering believes the concentrator will reach efficiencies beyond five percent when fully optimized.

“It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way,” Lunt said. “It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader. Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there.”

ECS will have a symposium at the upcoming meeting in Cancun dealing with solar fuels and the utilization of solar energy. Find out more about the meeting and sign-up for early bird registration today!

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